• Thurrott: Microsoft’s Upgrade Deceptions Are Undermining Windows 10

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    #41916

    Paul hit this one on the head. Thurrott.com This one’s personal. I’ve made a decent living with Windows and Office for 25 years – and now Microsoft is
    [See the full post at: Thurrott: Microsoft’s Upgrade Deceptions Are Undermining Windows 10]

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    • #41917

      Thurrott is one of the few Malwaresoft advocates/apologists who will occasionally hold their feet to the fire, however reluctantly… It might take the imminent end of the world for Mr. Bott to actually do the same… He may be a friend of yours Woody and I apologize if this offends you, but it’s about time he got his head out of his butt and told the truth about the forced upgrades. Just saying…

    • #41918
    • #41919

      Remind me how to roll back to Win 7 if you do it in 30 days?
      i have never had the install pop up on my machine, but I am expecting my day to be trashed with calls from all my non geeky friends.

    • #41920
    • #41921

      Naw, I don’t get offended by stuff like that. Like I said, you have to have a tough skin in this business. Ed has one of the toughest.

      I’m surprised that Mary Jo hasn’t chimed in yet, but she may be waiting for proof that the upgrade proceeds without “Agree”ing to the EULA. As am I.

    • #41922

      This is, without doubt, one of the most insightful short news items I’ve ever seen.

      https://web.archive.org/web/20160524130324/https://media2.8ch.net/b/src/1463638704337.webm

      As for applicability to MS nowadays: Don’t forget that Nadella has a long history with Server and Bing, and Myerson came from Server and Phone. Both are first-class engineers.

    • #41923

      For a good laugh, M$’s own design guidelines:

      https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dn742499%28v=vs.85%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

      “Make sure the Close button on the title bar has the same effect as Cancel or Close.”

      “The Close button on the title bar should have the same effect as the Cancel or Close button within the dialog box. Never give it the same effect as OK.”

    • #41924

      I was just thinking while reading Thurrott if Ed Bott joins in Hell has officially frozen over, lol.

    • #41925

      Apparently, nobody at Malwaresoft can understand their own guidelines any more. LOL!

    • #41926

      I’m not an “I told you so” kind of person, but it’s been obvious to me that this kind of thing has been brewing – and I’m being honest here – since around the time of the Windows 8 pre-releases.

      Remember how they started fading out Aero Glass, so that by the time the release came around it was just eliminated? Remember how they were supposedly listening to feedback, yet acted on none of it?

      Granted, that wasn’t Microsoft acting like an outright malware author just yet, but it WAS them manipulating users in ways that few wanted. And if you doubt that last part, let’s discuss just how well-received all the releases since that time have been. Hint: Windows 7 STILL has about 50% of the users in the world.

      Some might even say Microsoft’s slide down the slippery slope started in Windows 7. I’d have trouble arguing against that, but fast forward to today and we see an outright avalanche of bad intentions.

      Yes, indeed, it’s personal. It represents no less than the passing of the golden age of computing.

      Microsoft likes to follow Google and Apple… I suggest perhaps they should start with the slogan “Don’t Be Evil.”

      -Noel

    • #41927

      But it does have the same effect as cancel: “Install windows 10”.

      As for following their own guidlines, I will quote a previous comment:

      They could cut ~42% of excess (windows update) CPU usage by not doing what their documentation says not to do (calling QueryPerformanceFrequency more than once). One could hope this would cut run time by that much.

      Their supersedence function is un-optimized.

      Called recursively, 20+ layers deep:
      wuaueng.dll!CUpdatesToPruneList::AddSupersedenceInfoIfNeeded
      calls
      wuaueng.dll!CUpdateDetectInfoList::FindNewestUpdate
      calls
      wuaueng.dll!CSusMap::_tagMapEntry::_tagMapEntry
      which finaly calls
      ntdll.dll!RtlQueryPerformanceFrequency

      “QueryPerformanceFrequency retrieves the frequency of the performance counter. The frequency of the performance counter is fixed at system boot and is consistent across all processors. Therefore, the frequency need only be queried upon application initialization, and the result can be cached.” – Microsoft

      They called this function about 3,270,000 times during the 2 hour check for updates. Microsoft says “Only call this once, it won’t change between boots”, Microsoft calls it 3.27 MILLION times. Windows update is slow.

      I can only imagine what other possible improvements to optimization that aren’t this blatantly obvious could do for the update check speed.

    • #41928

      Someone at Microsoft doesn’t know how to code then…

    • #41929

      Well the sad thing here is that Google went dark side evil a long time ago.

      MS is just following them down the path. Google started doing forced updates with Chrome a long time ago (and on my old XP machine, it froze for 10 minutes during that update).

      Google has also continually abused its relationship with content providers – once Google had near monopoly position, it went from sending people to websites to scraping their content for Google’s own use.

      Google has valid biz reasons for such things, but they’ve changed from a company that did the right thing to a company that puts ‘right’ way down the list of priorities.

    • #41930

      “I’ve made a decent living with Windows and Office for 25 years – and now Microsoft is killing it.”

      How exactly is Microsoft killing your living? You’ve got more to write about now than ever. Especially when you invent “forced upgrades”.

    • #41931

      From last October: http://www.infoworld.com/article/2994117/microsoft-windows/microsoft-accidentally-upgrades-win7-and-81-pcs-to-windows-10.html

      Jury’s still out on whether the current round is “forced,” but it’s certainly “deceptive.”

    • #41932

      Can’t disagree on that one… Now, if only someone were to leak the source code for XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10.

      I think they got rid of the last vestiges of good coders when they got rid of the windows update testing team and replaced them with anyone who doesn’t count as an enterprise customer (i.e. us, when our systems break).

      Microsoft: run the code through even the most basic performance profiler!

      I found what I posted above using Microsoft’s OWN performance profiler.

      Incompetence?
      Malice?
      Way too much of both?

    • #41933

      Microsoft u-turn on “nasty trick” pop-up
      http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376962

    • #41934

      Irrelevant to this post, but relevant because…

      I installed Steve Gibson’s Never10 and was pleased with how quick it ran. Seemed pretty fair given that downloading GB of data is sure faster than downloading or moving that data.

      This morning, however, I suddenly found myself with 86 windows updates, many of which were from a lot of updates that were already listed as bad. But I as surprised to discover that somewhere, somehow, in that mess there are apparently more KB numbers than we thought there were.

      Fortran, C++, R, Python, Java, Matlab, HTML, CSS, etc.... coding is fun!
      A weatherman that can code

    • #41935

      It’s made the main news here in the UK – Microsoft u-turn on “nasty trick” pop-up

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36376962

    • #41936

      How many times have you used “forced upgrade” since that temporary glitch six months ago?

    • #41937

      Not sure – but the “temporary glitch” (which lasted a week) was, without doubt, a forced upgrade.

    • #41938

      @b,

      Given all the deliberate underhanded “stuff” MSFT has done since W10 has appeared on the scene and how MSFT has intentionally mislead some of its most loyal customers-users, you’re going to come here and antagonize Woody about his accurate description of an event that most people agreed was a MSFT attempt to force the upgrade?

      That MSFT explained it was a “mistake” or “accident” and pulled it after the fact, is irrelevant..especially when that explanation comes from a company which suddenly changes the action of an “X” for half a century from “close this window” to “I accept”. If it walks like a duck…

      It’s time for you to troll somewhere else, @b.

    • #41939

      Gregg Keizer at Computerworld has also weighed in on this issue:

      http://www.computerworld.com/article/3074548/microsoft-windows/microsoft-has-been-conning-windows-users-for-two-months.html

      Seems like this sneakiness has been in effect for at least two months.

    • #41940

      It is definitely a big risk to use deceptive practices but Microsoft has obviously determined that it comes down to ‘big risk, big rewards’. It is more important to them that they snag the majority of the not-so-savvy users before the free upgrade expires. The big reward is in the control Microsoft gets – settings, updates, apps, upgrades and advertising opportunities. The other big reward is the numbers game – it is highly unlikely these users will move away from Microsoft.

      The big risk is the inevitable bad press and the impact it has on the brand. The knowledgeable users can deal with the deceptions and chose to either go or stay with Microsoft. Most will stay. The blogosphere rails and the articles quickly roll off the main screen.

      The Enterprise users are not effected by these shenanigans. Most say they will start migrating in 2017. The Microsoft brand has not been damaged in their eyes and they represent the majority of MS revenues.

      So is all this deception undermining W10 ? No, not really.

    • #41941

      Sorry, b…… but not sure what you are inferring here re the ‘forced upgrades’ Maybe you didn’t have this happen to you……… Count yourself lucky!
      Many did and had a v. frustrating experience. Also the inference to Woody, even tho’ he says he has a thick skin, is impolite and totally uncalled for. LT

    • #41942

      I’m not sure that I agree. Enterprise people I know are angry – because this fiddling stuff with Win10 updates is hurting THEIR reputation, as guilt by association with Microsoft.

    • #41943

      I don’t think @b is trolling. He has a legitimate point of view, and expresses it well. I just disagree with him/her – and that’s what makes a horse race. Good to get the issues aired.

    • #41944

      Microsoft’s violation of it’s own long understood and published standards by treating the dismissal of a dialog box as if the user clicked “OK” caused Win 10 to be installed contrary to the user’s wishes.

      How is that not a forced upograde?

    • #41945

      I agree with you that they are disgusted, however, I can not see them going elsewhere. Will it undermine their migration to W10?

    • #41946

      I hope everyone notes the user who reports in the article that attempting to roll back to Win7 resulted in a BSD and then a dead computer. I keep seeing reassurances (including from our esteemed host) that you can always roll back, but wonder how well this will work for most users.

    • #41947

      Maybe an article about how Enterprises are being impacted by all this unethical behavior is warranted. We are being led to believe that Enterprises are champing at the bit to migrate to W10.

      Why would an Enterprise be guilt ridden by their association with Microsoft?

      There is a groundswell against Corporate bad behavior but most believe that there is no punishment for it.

    • #41948

      I do not know whether MS is permanently damaging its corporate reputation with the GWX tactics it has employed in various incarnations. However, forty plus years in corporate finance negotiating complex deals between multiple parties led me to believe in certain empirical truths. One cardinal rule I always let guide my thinking was “you cannot turn a bad deal into a good deal with a contract”; namely if the interests of the counterparties are divergent or one party displays an unwillingness to act in “good faith” things will likely head south. MS now has business objectives which naturally do not align with what many users desire and therefore MS feels that the users natural demand for their product will not produce sufficient uptake to fulfill internal goals. Therefore, users need to be pushed, deceived and annoyed to hit the numbers. Windows is no longer an OS to provide a stable usable system environment; it is now viewed by MS as a vehicle to steer you into cloud services which you may or may not currently need or to monitor your system usage to enable expanded targeted advertising. For users who just want a stable OS with a well-designed UI, I think you have a problem with MS going forward from here as you will likely be continually pushed or forced into decisions that may be unappreciated. I avoid using the term customer because that is a concept that MS has never grasped very well historically.

    • #41949

      Fascinating analysis. I think it also applies to Google v consumers – and, increasingly, Apple.

    • #41950

      It would be interesting.

      The folks I know in corporate IT are feeling the heat because the top-level execs are mad at Microsoft, for pushing Win10 onto PCs owned by them, personally, or by family members. It’s almost as if the poor admin somehow had a complicit hand in allowing Microsoft to bully their poor, sainted mother into installing Win10.

    • #41951

      Ah, but you CAN’T always roll back. That’s why I never recommend upgrading, secure in the belief that the rollback will work. It doesn’t always work. See my Feb article for details. http://www.infoworld.com/article/3033806/microsoft-windows/how-to-roll-back-your-windows-10-upgrade.html

    • #41952

      I think you’re right – moving from Windows to any other platform is highly problematic. It’ll be interesting to see how/if Microsoft nudges Win7 Enterprise installations to Win10.

    • #41953

      I’m sympathetic to @b’s point of view. Just ran a Google search, and I haven’t used the phrase “forced upgrade” in more than two months. I made a conscious decision that “forced upgrade” is too harsh – and I’ve reverted to using the phrase “coerced upgrade.”

      I’m still waiting for test results, though, to see if the latest round of upgrades did – without any doubt – happen without clicking Accept on a EULA. It’s fiendishly difficult proving that something didn’t happen.

      I still use “forced update” to refer to Win10’s updating scheme, by the way – although anyone who’s sufficient motivated can block the updates.

    • #41954

      Did this happen after installing the “Convenience rollup update” KB3125574 or is not related?

    • #41955

      By the way… lemme tell you a story. Four years ago, as Windows 8 was rolling out, I referred to old-fashioned Windows desktop programs – the ones that rely on the Win32 API – as “legacy programs.”

      Someone on this forum called me on it. He/she anonymously accused me of using the term “legacy program” when I had no reason to use it.

      Ends up, they were right. I searched all over Microsoft’s announcements at the time, and found lots of references to the “legacy desktop” — but no references at all to “legacy programs.” I changed my ways immediately. Hey, when you’re wrong, you’re wrong – and I owe one to the anonymous poster for pointing out my mistake.

      In this case, @b is right — which is why I toned down the “forced upgrade” references more than a couple of months ago. There’s no doubt that Microsoft forcibly upgraded machines in October – Microsoft admitted it, although it took a week and a strongly worded editorial from Peter Bright to trigger the response. But unless I see a bonafide, recent example of a Win10 upgrade that proceeded without an “Agree” on a EULA, I have to admit @b is right.

      At the same time, I think the EULA is deceptive. But that’s a different topic altogether.

    • #41956

      b is not trolling. b is probably a believer in newer is better in any circumstances and in this case it just happens to be Windows 10 vs one of the previous versions. While there are few of us here believing that Windows 10 will eventually be better than Windows 7 and that this will happen soon if it has not already happened, the difference is that most of us don’t necessary agree with the ways Microsoft promotes it’s new product to suit their business model. And this is what is all about, not about the quality of Windows 10, which is a different issue not discussed by Paul Thurrott in his article or here.

    • #41957

      “it is highly unlikely these users will move away from Microsoft.”

      This is actually the reason why Microsoft can afford to use the current practices when pushing for the upgrade so hard.
      I have been reading about users threatening to move to other operating systems at least for the last 20 years and what has changed? Are Linux desktop or MacOS or the newer Chrome OS in use so much that they threaten Microsoft’s monopoly?

    • #41958

      The biggest issues which are still unresolved for Enterprise users as I see them are:
      – Profiles don’t roam well and Microsoft does not have a solution for elements of the Start Menu roaming, in particular the Tiles. This does not affect all Enterprise users, but there are many affected using remote access solutions like those offered by Citrix.
      – Windows Store applications – this can be worked around however by using either LTSB Edition or the regular Enterprise and a set of Group Policies and modified image.

    • #41959

      I think when Woody says that Enterprise admins feel guilty is more about those not using managed solutions for updating like those in smaller businesses using Windows Update. Many of those admins generally don’t have the time to fine tune their systems and do the research required to change their configurations every time when Microsoft does it. Many simply stopped updating.

    • #41960

      @woody,

      It doesn’t matter whether you call it “forced” or “coerced”. I’ll leave those debates to the language lawyers. In my book the euphemisms don’t matter.

      The bottom line is that the outcome violates accepted standards and norms and is contrary to the user’s wishes.

    • #41961

      Yes, it applies to the industry as a whole. All big players see opportunity in the Cloud and are trying to seize this opportunity as quickly as possible. Historically there are many examples of big IT companies which failed while doing a fantastic product because they did not adapt quickly enough to the new market trends. Nokia is a recent example.

    • #41962

      Agreed.

    • #41963

      Wise words about recognizing the symptoms of bad deals. I spent over three decades in an industry which, for reasons having to do with some profound changes in the regulatory framework, had to demarket unprofitable customers and liquidate assets on a large scale before it could succeed again.

      Is this where we are? From all directions I see the desktop computer user, especially the home office and small business user, derided as a fuddy-duddy relic. This is the customer who would have happily paid for Windows upgrades forever, so long as they delivered something new and better–probably always with some delay compared to the early adopters, but eventually.

      But there’s the hitch: What have recent versions of Windows done for such users that Windows 7 does not do? Not much, in the opinion of many. For such users, Microsoft ran out of ideas awhile ago and has quit trying.

      Another piece of business wisdom is the little ditty that you sometimes see framed on the wall in establishments, which begins with the phrase, “I am the quiet customer,” or something like that, and ends with the much-abused patron finally, silently, going away–a warning that the customer’s silence should not be mistaken for approval. That insight goes along with another piece of advice I have often heard from those with practical business experience, that one should think twice, and more, before throwing away customers who can still be served at a profit.

      Is the problem that Microsoft has grown so bloated and unfocused that it can’t make a profit on software anymore?

    • #41964

      I’m not particularly interested in going from Windows 7 to Windows 10, but if I were, I’d be thinking this: “Microsoft is doing all this to make me change, even though I don’t want to, but while I’m using Windows 7, I still have a choice. What would happen if I were to install Windows 10? Then I’d no longer be able to refuse Microsoft’s updates, and their present behaviour makes me fear the worst.”

    • #41965

      I think you have hit the nail on the head. In recent years there have been few improvements to the Windows platform that have been compelling enough to motivate users to upgrade. There are still diehards that continue to use XP long after it reached End of Life and support was discontinued.

      The MS Office cash cow is another prime example. The number of computer users that actually use the myriad of features in this bloated suite is minimal. The redesign of the Office UI and the advent of the ribbon was just putting lipstick on the pig.

      The desktop market will continue to contract. MS is trying to make hay while the sun shines. Considering it’s inability to effectively compete in the mobile arena these moves come as no surprise.

    • #41966

      Google isn’t the only non-MS company doing “forced updates”. Adobe is also doing “forced auto updates” with their Adobe Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader DC (document cloud version) software.

    • #41967

      You can turn off auto update in chrome. There are scheduled tasks that need disabled and services than need set to manual. After that (if you have UAC on) chrome only updates if you visit the about dialog in settings.

      One hopes that you have chrome installed correctly (to the program files directory) NOT a writeable directory in appdata. All bets are off if you have a program installed to a directory writable by a non-admin.

      Chrome would (at least a few years ago) install to the wrong directory rather than ask the user a simple question (install where? elevate to admin?).

    • #41968

      Also you can’t roll back if the install results in a trashed windows 10 install.

      I saw a 3 month old upgrade to windows 10 become unbootable. windows 10 tried to fix it (several times I gather) end result:
      Filesystem corrupt, mostly just found.000 containing many of the files from the filesystem (folder names and stucture lost).

      2+ human hours, 12 hours of computer time (using 3 different tools), and 3 weeks later I got most of the user’s lost data back.

      A thorough hardware check revealed no hard drive or OS corrupting hardware problems.

      Best guess? windows 10 installed an updated SATA driver automaticaly that was faulty or not compatable with the OEMs custom motherboard (it was an AiO).

    • #41969

      They had to “test”. Where do you test things? Your test users! Who are microsoft’s test users? Anyone not running enterprise editions.

    • #41970

      What do you count this as: a former Windows 8.1 computer which without human interaction (win update was set to auto) installed windows 10 and was left sitting on the 10 EULA screen (windows 10 IS installed at this point)

      The upgrade is complete, and is pending the user accepting the EULA. Declining results in reverting the upgrade.

      The countdown to reinstall windows 10 started within an hour of reverting.

      “We didn’t forcibly haul your house 100 miles without your consent (at risk to your house) and put it down at the new place we think you should live, I mean you can just click decline and we will haul it back to where it was (at risk to your house) and if we didn’t fail either time your house won’t be destroyed. We might try AGAIN after we move it back. Unless you decline. Declining requires technical knowledge, there is no big don’t bother me again button.”

      Fine print: “Houses sometimes destroyed in transit, no liability accepted. You should have already had a backup house. You gave consent after the fact, that counts right?”

    • #41971

      Imagine a version of Windows (lets call it 7.5) that was so optimized that it could actually run well with 1 GB of ram and a single core atom (or even ARM) CPU and it had a version of IE (lets call it IE12) that people preferred to use because it was good and fast. Also image that the OS was not only optimized but well written and secure.

      What has microsoft been doing instead? Redesigning the UI and coding poorly so that fixing it will take more and more time.

      Do they have enough money at this point to take it and the time and make what I described above?

    • #41972

      @wdburt1 What have recent versions of Windows done for such users that Windows 7 does not do?

      I was asking myself the same question when Windows 2000 was upgraded to Windows XP and later when Windows XP was upgraded to Windows 7. Notice that I skipped few not so relevant versions on purpose.
      It is the way Microsoft reinvented marketing by selling an inferior quality product and pretending that there is no other way to resolve ongoing problems than by first updating for free to the next Service Pack (or to minor updates between them) and next by upgrading and paying for the newer product every few years.
      What stops Microsoft to release an operating system and call it Windows or a major application suite named Office with no version and doing it properly in the first place, pretty much like any other product is in the market? It can be argued that there is a fast evolution and even the Open Source products follow the same model, but isn’t this the model imposed by commercial companies to suit their business interests?
      It appears that Microsoft by announcing that Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, finally is doing what should have been done from the beginning, just because this is the end or close to the end of the desktop PC as we know it and there is no longer a profitable enough market for players like Microsoft.

    • #41973

      🙂 Actually, the “Decline on EULA” rollback seems to work well. It’s just the after-the-fact rollbacks that sometimes have problems.

    • #41974

      @Yan What is so scary about those “forced” updates in Windows 10 which are not so forced after all with the relevant configuration as it was discussed here so many times? Woody has few articles about doing such configuration on InfoWorld and many of us posted relevant replies. It is true that the configuration to modify the behaviour of Windows Update in Windows 10 is not obvious, but it uses supported documented configuration and is reliable.
      I am not at all in favour of doing partial updates as they result in unreliable functionality. Delaying updates for between 3 to 4 weeks is OK and is quite recommended, stopping doing all updates is less recommended for security, but I see it as a better option for the Windows functionality than doing selective updates.
      The forced updates are Microsoft’s response to millions of infected less knowledgeable end-users on the Internet which cause issues for anyone else by slowing the Internet and being used as source of distributed attacks against targets on the Internet.
      For those who are in the category of power users, the updates can be blocked and installed only when the user has the intention of doing so.

      I think an operating system should be installed or not based on merit and individual requirements and not on issues which can be resolved.

    • #41975

      Sorry, ch100, such sentences as this escape me:

      “It can be argued that there is a fast evolution and even the Open Source products follow the same model, but isn’t this the model imposed by commercial companies to suit their business interests?”

      As does the suggestion that what is going on now is a repeat of what happened when XP was upgraded to Win7. At least that one was rationalized by better stability and security.

      “Reinvented marketing” by lying? No self respecting marketer would accept that characterization. To say that is to endorse unethical behavior.

      If you’re saying that Windows for the desktop computer is dead and we should just gather and pay our respects, then I get it. But it does not have to be. Nor would millions of individual and small business users agree.

      I’d like to see the P&L analysis that shows that M$ cannot make money providing Windows and Office to desktop users. There is no such thing, of course, because your premise is mistaken. Microsoft does what it does not because it would lose money providing Windows, but because its management believes they can make more money forcing users to convert to the cloud, spyware, whatever, while stripping them of the right to use familiar and trusted software. In this Microsoft is tragically mistaken, I think.

    • #41976

      The reasons there are new versions and service pack releases in software, even before Microsoft, is in fundamental properties of software as such:

      1. Software is written, directly or indirectly by humans, who make mistakes. Thus bug fix service packs will always be needed.

      2. People (both users and designers) come up with ideas for improved functionality or behavior, such as squigly-highlighting potentially misspelled words on the fly as a convenient supplement to running a spell checker later. Or maybe just adjusting what happens when you press the “Bold” hot-key on text that is already partially bold. Sometimes such changes are so substantial they should not be foisted on users as part of a service pack or so useful they justify charging for a new version.

    • #41977

      Isn’t that basically what is happening though? I don’t see how clicking cancel or close can constitute any acceptance of any legally binding thing. If it can, we sincerely need to address the complete nonsense of such laws & do something to fix it immediately. Most people either aren’t smart enough or are too trusting to not fall for this complete scam. Someone desperately needs to step in and do something to Microsoft to make this stop. It’s acting just as badly as typical malware. Worse, even!

    • #41978

      You seriously think this is an invention? Are you living under a rock? This has happened to too many people to count. You probably work for Microsoft.

    • #41979

      Such a perfect analogy. Seriously. This is one to be shared. Bob, may I borrow this excellent analogy for future use? I think it’s the best way to explain this to people who are less knowledgeable or kind of dim. It’s easy enough for anyone to understand.

    • #41980

      Sadly this article is paywalled so I can only post part of Susan Bradley’s article – but she gives Woody (deservedly) a big tick :

      Getting ready (or not) for Windows 10

      Real evidence of forced Windows 10 upgrades

      First, an apology to Windows Secrets readers — and especially to my colleague Woody Leonhard. Some months back, he reported a forced Win10 upgrade on one of his own systems.

      But I didn’t believe him; I thought he’d missed some confirmation step in the upgrade process. Wearing my rose-colored glasses, I’ve assumed that Microsoft customers would always see the standard end-user license agreement (EULA) before any major upgrade started.

      Well, I was wrong; just as I was wrong to doubt that a Windows Secrets reader received a Win10 upgrade without the user’s permission.

      On May 12, Microsoft changed its policy on Win10 upgrades. The company now picks a date for your machine’s migration to the new OS. Once that date is set, all users can seemingly do is wait for the upgrade to finish and then decide whether to roll back to Win7 or Win8.1.

      http://windowssecrets.com/patch-watch/getting-ready-or-not-for-windows-10/

    • #41982

      Alas, you’re right. Even though it’s a Windows Secrets Top Story, it’s paywalled. Grrrrrrrrr.

      I still haven’t heard back from Susan about the final lap of her marched Win10 upgrade.

    • #41983

      “attempting to roll back to Win7 resulted in a BSD”

      In my case:
      attempting to roll back to Win7 resulted in changing to OpenBSD

    • #41984

      HARRRRRRRR!

    • #41985

      Yes, blame the whole thing on an intern with no coding experience. It is not Microsoft policy blah blah blah

    • #41986

      There are registry keys to block the Adobe Reader DC forced updates. Not published obviously…

    • #41987

      Chrome still installs in the wrong directory or at least stores application data files against the rules of the operating system and this is one of the main reasons why Chrome has never been taken seriously in the enterprise.
      Now we have Windows (Universal, Modern) Apps installing in the same way, i.e in the Local (non-roaming) area of the user profile. Now it is Microsoft ignoring their own rules.

    • #41988

      They wouldn’t do that, would they?

      Oh, wait… Of course they would!

    • #41989

      No, I don’t have that update install. It’s all really weird because apparently a good number of updates were uninstalled when I ran Never10. Seems like something Windows 10 related is getting slipped into most, if not all, updates now.

      Fortran, C++, R, Python, Java, Matlab, HTML, CSS, etc.... coding is fun!
      A weatherman that can code

    • #41990

      The data files seem to be stored where they belong, it need to be able to write to them without being admin. It must NOT be able to overwrite exutable code.

      Also updating a multi user system with multiple installs of chrome would be a pain when installed incorrectly.

      Also why is it so hard to get a full installer (rather than a stub) these days?

      Here is one for chrome with offline, proper install:
      https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/desktop/index.html?system=true&standalone=1

      Be careful that you uncheck the default option to hijack your homepage.

    • #41991

      Does it still update at all? Prompt to update is fine, disable all update is not. Still on 11/XI here.

    • #41992

      If we get to windows 14 in the next 4 years I think we must be dealing with an even more insane microsoft.

      “windows 14 — not the huge disaster like windows 11 and 13. New security requires iris scan to unlock, prevents unexpected 3D printing of spy droids that aren’t invisible like they are supposed to be. Imprisonment for daily marketing brain scan reduced to 1 hour! Scanner now less painful! Reduced fines for speaking badly about microsoft.”

    • #41993

      But they’ll probably skip Win13…

    • #41994

      Reuters reports that Microsoft has upset China with this latest deceptive push to upgrade to W10.

      Over 1.2 million complaints.

      No doubt, the vast majority being pirated W7 systems.

      How will Microsoft react to this one?

    • #41995

      Andy Weir at Neowin has a post about it here: http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-faces-growing-criticism-in-china-over-aggressive-windows-10-upgrade-push

      What I don’t get…. 90% of the Win7 machines in China (or more) are running pirate copies. Are they getting the GWX notices, too? If so, what happens when they try to upgrade?

    • #41996

      It seems that Malwaresoft just can’t help themselves…

      According to this article:

      http://betanews.com/2016/05/27/microsoft-office-android-ad-spam/

      they were recently caught spamming Android users with Office ads in the notifications area.

      But they will stop doing so “soon”.

      Clearly they believe in seeking forgiveness rather than asking for approval to abuse their customers.

    • #41997

      MS has stated that only genuine licenses can take advantage of the W10 upgrade. Either these pirated copies are fooling the patch that validates the license or MS has changed it on the sly to bypass the check just for the W10 free upgrade. However, I expect the pirated licenses are not being detected because they are really good clones, but if it is the latter, MS will have a lot more to answer for.

      I do remember reading that there was supposed to be some kind of screen manipulation or service interruption if you upgraded using a pirated copy. If that is so, I can understand their anger having been forced onto W10. Going back may have also been an issue. I shed no tears.

    • #41998

      That’s an interesting question.
      I think that there were discussions earlier that Microsoft would offer silently upgrades for free for the first year even to those pirated copies. This was supposed to be a concession made by Microsoft for the purpose of strengthening the security of the whole Internet. I don’t know if it was implemented or not.

    • #41999

      Why? 13 is a nice prime number…

    • #42000

      Pirated Software – what happens if it is detected?

      As Microsoft describes the situation on its Genuine Windows page, you’ll see frequent messages warning you that your copy of Windows may not be genuine. Your desktop will turn to black. You can reset it, but it will continue to turn black until you activate Windows. You can still get critical security updates, though you may not be able to get optional updates or other software, such as Microsoft Security Essentials. But otherwise, Windows and your applications will still be able to function. Of course, this information applies to the existing versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8 and not necessarily to Windows 10.

      Apparently Windows 10 just gets a watermark. Why?

    • #42001

      Nice.

    • #42002

      Win10 gets a digital certificate.

      Folks in Asia long, long ago discovered ways to bypass the Genuine certification problems. What’s not clear to me is if the 1.2 million people complaining are griping because they’re being upgraded from a pirate version of Win7 to a non-functional version of Win10…

    • #42003

      There is no payback for Microsoft to upgrade pirates to a non-functional version of W10. MS wants the market. They are desperate.

      Even if the OS is pirated, the MS Store is functional. Build it and they will buy.

      It is only us useful idiots in the west who pay full price for a new W10 license. The Enterprise clients and OEM partners are totally spineless.

    • #42004

      That’s absolutely correct (about the zero payback) – and makes a lot of sense. But there has to be some reason why so many people (presumably the vast majority of whom are pirates) are so upset!

      Wish I read Chinese better…

      Piracy, on the other hand, has all sorts of unintended side effects. I lived in Thailand for 13 years, and rarely saw a truly genuine copy of Windows. As a result, many PCs got bit by all sorts of creepy-crawlies. There is an advantage – to the consumer – to paying for what they use.

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    Reply To: Thurrott: Microsoft’s Upgrade Deceptions Are Undermining Windows 10

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